it turns out omar obama said they actually lived together many years ago when president obama was a sttdent at harvard law school. so the white house explains it as saying that when they first got the call from the boston globe back in 2011, they never directly asked the president whether or not he knew his uncle, they just went back and looked at his book and other things. here's jay carney trying to explain it. >> when omar obama said the other day -- and there were reports that he had said the other day that president obama back when he was a law school student had stayed with him in cambridge, i thought it was the right thing to do to go ask him. nobody had asked him in the past, and the president said he, in fact, had met omar obama when he moved to cambridge for law school, andts that he stayed wih him for a brief period of time until his, the president's apartment, was ready. >> reporter: so now the white house trying to clean this up, but sort of strange that they didn't go to president obama back in 2011 and just get the facts, martha. martha: yeah. so the president's uncle has bee